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20 April 2010

A portion of this will be posted in the www.Levi-Somnus.wowstead.com forums... lol. Cause I can multi-purpose it that way. This will also be posted on my www.twelve-squared.livejournal.com blog cause, well... again... I wanna make sure to share it.

SO... long story as short as I can make it and still make it understandable to the less-WoW inclined masses.

I have some truths that I hold to be self-evident and life-pertinent. LOL

Probably the number one of these truths for most of my life has been the firm belief that Karma is a real and very active participant in our lives.

I think of my lady of Karma as a beautiful and slightly jaded gal who wears all green... and I call her the Green Lady for this reason. She's actually Lady Luck from a book series I read... but... anyway. In my own weird universe where I live mostly alone I also pray to her, so do with that what you will. I believe we make our luck, and if someone out there can poke, cajole or otherwise jinx something out of my way it's just all that much luckier for me, huh? (I'm kidding but only a little.)

Occasionally my rule number one is replaced by my rule number two, and how... lucky (? lol) for me that I got to see them both at once? LOL

Rule number two is that no matter what you're facing or what you're attempting a positive attitude and a steady and constant eye on the prize will get you there... eventually. It may be immensely harder than it needed to be, it may take you a million drops of blood sweat and tears and it may even cost you much more than you were willing to pay when you enlisted yourself on the endeavor... regardless... if you keep moving forwards and keep your chin up you can eventually have whatever you set yourself to having. I believe this. You don't have to. Hopefully you have your OWN beliefs.

well...

Last night on World of Warcraft I got to see them both together.

And it was beautiful and fun and hilariously funny all at once.

To sum up... there's an instance called Azjol'Nerub in Northrend. It's a lower level instance as far as the 5-man challenges go. Only 3 bosses and even at "heroic" level still only level 80-82 for difficulty.

Holle and Matara queue for a random heroic instance. Matara has a low-ish gear score, something near 3500 compared to Holle's 5300. It's ok. This instance was created for folks who have just gotten to level 80 and there will be 3 others in the party to help us out.

A protection Paladin who literally JUST dinged level 80 and forgot to get their level 80 training... and an affliction Warlock with a gear score almost exactly the same as Matara's. Ok. This might take a little longer than 10 or 15 minutes, but in my mind I'm thinking we still have this thing. After all... the Shaman healer has a gear score of almost 5k and mine is over 5k and it is... after all... Azjol'Nerub. It's not like we picked up Halls of Reflection or something.

Well... omg. First pull, then Pally needs to get her level 80 training and Shammy has an "omg I hate pugs" hate moment in the chat. Holle and Matara and the Warlock flirt and dance and generally chillax a bit. We wipe hard on the next trash pull cause said Shammy was in elemental spec and forgot to switch back when the Paladin hurried back. So... a wipe out of our systems and geared for success we head through the first fight pretty well.

Then Matara says on our way down to Hadronox "hey, does the rogue glitch still work on heroic?"

"Yes," I say thinking 'oh boy, this might hurt a bit. I'm not sure our dps is gonna be enough', "It should. We can do it if the tank and heals are up to it."

No one but myself has ever done this achievement on heroic before. So... to explain for those of you who have not and will not see this fight.

Hadronox is a huge spider. When run as it's supposed to be run Hadronox comes out of her lair, spins webs over the doors to prevent her nutritrious and delicious snacks from leaving, eats them to buff her health and then turns on the adventurers to eat them or die trying.

When this event is "glitched" a Rogue, Hunter or... and I might be making this up, a Warlock can trigger the event and cause it to reset so that Hadronox and her health buffing additional monsters are all gone and then the spider resets down in the bottom of her lair where adventurers can race down and kick the crap out of her before she's fully ready for them and you can get an achievement for not letting her web off the combat area.

Well... we were too slow.

And after 9 minutes and 5 seconds of combat with the spider in her lair with literally hundreds of the little additional "mobs" showing up so she can eat them between times when they are eating us... we all jumped down through the hole and tried to get away. The Warlock, however, was dead and so when he ran back in he couldn't get past her and died again.

On the way down the ramp the Warlock who had died three or four times, I lost count trying to stay alive myself... dropped group and we re-queued.

Well, we teleported out of dungeon and ran back in planning to just take the spider head-on the way she's meant to be killed. We picked up a hunter just as we started the fight and realized something had gone wrong. See... our previous attempt to glitch Hadronox had left us with a spider who refused to come into the combat area and instead stayed outside it eating her additional mobs and so after 8 minutes of combat we gave up and let her kill us.

The hunter didn't want any part of our plan to glitch the spider a second time and try for the achievement again if for no other reason than that we could jump down the hole as a group of 5 if any of her additional helpers/snacks showed up in the fight. He dropped without so much as an "hasta la vista, baby."

And we queued for another member to replace our Warlock turned Hunter.

Now, to remind you... the Shammy was hating on PickUpGroups for being "fail" and in just a couple compliments about managing to keep 3 under-geared members of the party mostly alive for 9 minutes he was wholly committed to getting the achievement and having the bragging rights that was just his epic achievements in the run. He was laughing and joking and helping plan our attack.

And we picked up the SAME Warlock.

He must have re-queued hoping for an easy run of something and got the fight from hell again. Remember... my estimate was that we'd be in the instance maybe 15 minutes instead of 10 because of some of our members having lower gear. Add just the fights with the spider together and we're already over that estimate before you calculate the time for a Pally who needed level 80 training and running back from being dead and... well... you get my point. We were already at the 45 minute mark when the Warlock had the misfortune of finding himself back in our group with the first post in chat being...

"WoW karma is a lovely thing."

Well... we glitched the boss, we killed her, we fought the rest of the dungeon and we were done from that point to the end loots in about 10 minutes. Maybe less.

The moral of the story? I can be obvious and point it out... we stuck to it as a group of strangers committed to getting a thing done.. and the only "deserter" from the original plan got thrust back into the plan right before it worked out to prove to them that their doubtful ways were punishable by being returned to the point of origin.

It was fucking frustrating, to be really honest. And still... two of us knowing the fights and what to do and three of us being willing to learn or at least lie there dead and quiet in the chat was enough to get us through it laughing and successful. Four people got the achievement they were looking for in only 2 wipes (try doing THAT in ICC with a pug!) and about 20 minutes of seriously painful but kinda epic fighting.

So... sometimes I wonder if I'm nuts and feel like no one in the world can ever see the world from the slightly over-optimistic place where I do... and other times I know I'm entirely fucking crazy... and I can still point to a specific place in time and say out loud, "See? I TOLD you that my Lady in Green loves me and has a really wicked since of humor."

Peace be your journey and joyous be every challenge... whether it face-rolls you or just glides easily under your feet without notice. And remember... Karma is real and sometimes instant. Best to keep your chin up and keep on keepin' on.